Pharaoh
by ElvenDestiny
Summary: There were so many reasons why he hated Yami, he didn't even understand all the complexities himself. All he knew was that his desire to be pharaoh and his desire to take that dignity away from Yami were the one and the same, sometimes.


Pharaoh  
  
~ ElveNDestiNy (a.k.a. Kaiba's Angel)  
  
Disclaimer: Nothing from Yu-Gi-Oh! is mine.  
  
Author's Note: For some reason, a lot of people reviewing my stories in the YGO genre have said that the formatting was screwed up. I don't know if it's ff.net, my computer, or their computer that doesn't display right, but I have uploaded stories (.htm) in other genres with none of the problems. Anyway, this story got accidentally deleted before so I'm reposting it, and I've decided to post it as a (.doc) story. Please excuse the formatting if there is something wrong. By the way, if you like LOTR, that story is more worth reading =p.  
  
He looked at his own reflection in the mirror. Large violet eyes, unusual already in their color, stared back at him from an exotic face, darkly tanned and foreign. The hair was an odd color as well, caught between platinum and blonde, so fair that in the sunlight it became a brilliant crown of molten electrum. It contrasted sharply with the rich, milk chocolate color of his skin. He was naked from the waist up, wearing only pants of loose linen looking like something out of a historical play.  
  
He saw all of this, and none of it. What he saw in the mirror was an exotic bird in a gilded cage, for all to admire. He had always been the dutiful son, mindful of his parents, knowing what he was destined to be from the day he was born. Like the others before him, throughout countless years, they would protect, conceal, safeguard. He, like his sister, would be a guardian when their parents passed on, and the children that they themselves bore, and the grandchildren, would do the same.  
  
Sudden rage transformed his face as he thought of all his blood has sacrificed for the long-dead pharaoh. Why? He demanded his reflection. He turned his back on the mirror, quickly looking away yet still catching a glimpse of what had haunted him from childhood.  
  
The ancient hieroglyphs covering nearly his entire back, from shoulder to shoulder, from the nape of the neck to just above his waist. The thick black lines seemed harsh even contrasting with his chocolate skin. Ever since his fifth birthday, his back had always been like this, deliberately scarred. All the male members of the Ishtar family bore the marks of their bondage to the pharaoh. The women had their own inscription, a design tattooed onto their skin, rather than the words.  
  
Unbidden, the forgotten language, long gone except for those of the purest blood, rose in his mind. He hated his heritage, his destiny, and the life that he had been born to. From his fifth birthday, he had been told the exact events of his life, the pattern of his destiny. There was no room for free choice. There was only duty, binding him 'round with chains, lying heavy on his shoulders. So long ago it seemed...  
  
***~***~***~***  
  
That day he had woken, still like any other child, oblivious of the world and cheerful. He shared his birthday with one other: his beloved sister. He remembered his mother leading himself and his sister into a room. The room had been heated and dark, but it was lit from light from the forge. Needles shined on a table, and Isis had started to cry from fear.  
  
His voice rose high and frightened, his hand clenching his mother's tightly. "What is this place? What are they doing?" His free hand found his sisters, and he rubbed small comforting circles into her palm.  
  
"Shh, little one," his mother said. "It will soon be over."  
  
"What will be over?" He asked, hugging his sister. Isis was brave, but she was crying, and so the fear ate away at him, too. There was no answer to his question, and when he looked up, his mother was gone.  
  
"Mother?" he asked, afraid to speak in the dimly lit room. Something was in the forge, but he could not make out what it was. It glowed red from heat.  
  
A man came, seemingly out of nowhere, and he started away, hand grasping his sister's too tightly.  
  
"Let go, Malik!" Isis shrieked. The sound was swallowed up by the room. The man took Isis away, his sister struggling, eyes huge in her face. Malik started after her, truly scared now, but another man took his hand and he could not struggle free.  
  
"It is all right, Malik, your sister will be fine. See, she sits on that table right now. Lie down on this on, and do not struggle, or it will be the worse for you. It will soon be over."  
  
The words were like his mother's, and Malik refused to lie down. The man forced him to lie face down on the table though, and tore away his shirt, exposing his back. The stone table was cold and hard beneath him. Malik bit his lip until he tasted blood, fighting down the scream that was rising in his throat, knowing that Isis was still there and would be even more frightened.  
  
His hands and feet were bound tightly, so that he could not move at all. He struggled, but his child's body was no match for the man. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that the same had been done to Isis, but then the man moved into his view and he couldn't see her at all.  
  
Suddenly, Isis screamed, a high, continuous scream of pain. The sound only paused while she drew breath, but then it was sustained again, shrill, panicked. Malik jerked hard against his bonds when he heard it, but could do nothing. His view was suddenly unobstructed again, and he saw the other man lean over his sister, and the gleam of a red-hot needle pricking into her flesh, tattooing the design upon her back.  
  
"Malik, help me!" his sister screamed, finally coherent at last, but Malik could do nothing.  
  
"Your turn," he heard his own captor say. "Bear it with dignity, all the House of Ishtar has been through the same." Heavy hands held his shoulders down so he was pinned entirely, and something descended on his back, filling him with pain so great his world turned white, and the scream was torn from his throat. His eyes had closed of their own will, but tears of pain trickled down the corners to the stone beneath him. He heard someone crying, screaming, and he was not sure if it was himself or his sister.  
  
The pain was thick in the air, a clawed beast. Hers was fine, needle- pricks of pain, but his was immediate, his entire back one mass of fire. It was heavy, too, and burned his skin; the smell of charred flesh was thick in the air. Finally, the weight was gone, but the pain was still there, too much, and oblivion claimed him.  
  
***~***~***~***  
  
He clenched his fists, cruel anger riding him, frustration causing his eyes to blur with tears. The mirror behind him seemed to taunt him, displaying his back for all to see, like the hand of fate upon his skin. From that day on, his entire life had changed. Before he knew what he was doing, he had turned, and with one swift motion, shattered the mirror with his bare hand. The punch had no finesse to it, no telling sign of the seven years of training he had gone through, shaping his body until the deceptively slender limbs held unyielding muscles, until his reactions during combat were so fast the human eye could barely see them.  
  
His hand was covered in blood, and he was glad that the shards of silver glass had taken their price. Some small part of his was shocked, stunned by his loss of control, because self-control, too, was a thing drilled into him. But the majority of him felt free, as if by breaking the mirror he had broken the chains of his prison to a spirit of the past.  
  
It was then that he vowed that he would disobey what tradition, and fortune had determined his entire life would be. That he would be the one to end the mindless toil the House of Ishtar had paid to the pharaoh. That he, not the spirit of the pharaoh, would wield the power that made others fall to his feet and worship.  
  
His family would no longer be humbled by decades, centuries, millennia, of bondage to the unworthy pharaoh. The pharaoh had done nothing, while the great kingdom of Egypt had fallen. He had repaid none of what he owned to his loyal servants. No, the pharaoh had only taken, and used, and ever the House of Ishtar had accepted it, and bowed their heads to him, because he was Pharaoh, descended from the gods themselves, beloved of Amun-Re.  
  
It was then that the youth, not a boy but not yet a man, decided that he would be Pharaoh, and that he would hold all the power of the gods.  
  
Soon, some sense told him. A year, two perhaps, and the spirit of the pharaoh would wake. As foretold, all would happen during his lifetime, his generation. That was why they had taken such special care of him, of Isis, his sister, and taught them from the cradle what would happen at each and every moment of their lives.  
  
When the time came to choose, he would walk his own path. He crossed his arms in front of himself, hugged himself. With one trembling hand still bleeding, he traced the skin on his back, the sensitive tips of his fingers touching the deep runnels of taut flesh, where the scarring had been deep and painful. His back had healed, as had his sister's, but some part of them too had died that day, their fifth birthday.  
  
He was no longer Malik, obedient son, who owed bondage to the pharaoh, who was slave to fate, chance, and destiny. He almost laughed at the notion that the pharaoh's justice would be the power that made him pharaoh. No, the youth staring back at him from the mirror was not Malik.  
  
It was he that would be...pharaoh.  
  
A/N: Just sort of my take on Malik, who you gotta admit is a pretty interesting character. The hieroglyphs on his back are from this an episode I saw. This is a one-shot story, but if you liked it, please review! Remember that this story is AU so don't bother telling me that it didn't really happen this way. I know it didn't. =p Thank you!  
  
~ ElveNDestiNy 


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